


Boundaries

by featherbake



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mention of fighting, Serpent Fangs Fogarty, Serpent Sweet Pea, southside serpents, they like to cuss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 08:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13971069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherbake/pseuds/featherbake
Summary: Sweet Pea realizing Fangs has no boundaries. At least with him.Kinda slow burn, shameless fluff.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for myself, and after rereading it multiple times, thought maybe someone else may wanna check it out.
> 
> It was a drabble that turned into something halfway decent, and I separated it into a few chapters.
> 
> Also posted on my tumblr natastriple6

He was 14 the first time he realized his friend may not understand boundaries. They had talked about it, about being in people’s space and touching them, about how some people didn’t care for it. But Fangs didn’t absorb it.

He had just run The Gauntlet that night. Benny had put everything behind the punch he threw, not caring for his cocky attitude, so his eyebrow was split and bleeding. There was bruising, and the busted vessel in his eye, but that was fine.

His mom was out of town visiting her sister (as usual, he was just waiting for the day she said she wouldn’t be back, to take care of the trailer), so he was slumped on the couch when the door flew open.

He jumped, the rag he was holding on the cut falling off. He sighed and sat back down when he saw that it was Fangs.

“You ever heard of knocking, Fogarty?”

Fangs looked genuinely confused, head tilt and all, then shook his head and plopped his backpack on the coffee table.

“I brought stuff!”

Pea rolled his eyes at his antics, but sat forward slightly. After rummaging through the bag, Fangs held up a bag of frozen peas, and smiled.

“Sweet peas, for Sweet Pea!” He laughed and held them up to Peas eye, then went back to rummaging.

“For fucks sake…” Sweat Pea rolled his eyes, but sat back and let the bag sit on his eye. Maybe it wouldn’t bruise so bad.

“And I got you some hotdogs, and some chips!”

He laid out the foil wrapped hotdogs and chips, sitting back with a grin.

“Where did you get the money for this shit?”

“I didn’t.” Fangs winked, and plopped down beside him.

They would later make it part of their moral code to only steal from Northside stores, and that jackass on the corner of 3rd and Parks who had a ‘No Serpents’ sign in his door. But at 14, they didn’t care.

“Nice.” Pea grinned, sitting forward. “What you’d get?” He asked, eyeing the backpack. At Fangs shrug and quiet “nothing” Pea got up, opening the cabinet by the stove. He frowned, trying not to think about how bare it was, and grabbed the can he was looking for. 

He pulled a fork from the drawer and came back, placing the pop top can and fork in front of Fangs, taking his seat back.

“Peaches!” Fangs grin got wider, and he hugged Pea, then cracked open the can.

Pea laughed, picking up his own food and settling back to watch whatever movie was playing on his shitty tv.

———————

He realized the summer before Junior year, a few weeks after Fangs had run the Gauntlet, that he was the only one Fangs held no concept of boundaries with.

He was still outgoing with their friends, touching them and getting in their space, but he didn’t cross any major lines. But Sweet Pea? He was always touching him, always inside his space, always at his house.

He usually slept over 3 days out of the week. But he had taken to sleeping over any time Peas mom was gone, which was often, and stealing food from a store right over the Northside border to try to appease the situation.

Pea confronted him about it, cornering him in the trailer one night when he was putting a handful of cans in the cabinet.

“What’s going on, Fogarty?”

Fangs flinched, and shook his head. 

“I’m good, I’m fine.” He turned around with his 1000 watt smile, trying to divert. “I got ravioli!”

He pulled out the pan, starting to heat the pasta up, causing Sweet Pea to cross his arms with a frown.

“Seriously. Your my best friend, dude. I know when you’re lying.” Fangs eyebrows shot up, his smile getting bigger. “Don’t act surprised dipshit. Now what’s going on?”

The smaller man sighed, slumping back on the counter beside him.

“My uh…my dad wasn’t happy that I’m a full fledged Serpent now. He uh, he kicked me out officially.”

“The fuck man? He was a Serpent once, he knows what it means to you.” Pea shook his head, then focused on the last part of the sentence. “Wait. Kicked you out officially?”

“Since moms been gone I’ve just kind of floated from family member to family member, I’ve not really lived there, so I threw what little I have in a duffel. He said he got out so I could do better, and not to come back as long as I was a Serpent. But now my other family doesn’t want me around either.”

Sweet Pea froze, his brain processing what he had just heard. He turned slowly, grabbing Fangs shoulders and making eye contact.

“Your moms been gone since you were 11.” Fangs nodded, eyebrows knitted in confusion, not understanding the big deal. “You’ve not had a real home in 4 years?”

Fangs just shrugged, turning to stir the food.

“I’ve got a home, dude. Your home to me.”

Pea didn’t make him elaborate, just accepted the statement, and the gift of food. It was unsettling at first, not because Fangs had come out and said it, but because he now had a name for the feeling he had whenever his friend was around.

He understood why he was one of the few Fangs would get close too.


	2. Chapter 2

Fangs deleted the word boundaries from his mental dictionary the night of Sweet Pea’s 16th birthday, at least where the taller man was concerned. Although Pea knew it was technically his doing if you really thought about it, drunk or not.

Fangs had gotten better with everyone else, not getting to close physically to people, and being a little less touchy. But he didn’t change how he was with Sweet Pea. 

He still barged into his trailer without knocking, which had been embarrassing a few times, at least for Pea. Like the one time he threw open the door, and found Sweets with a girl in the living room, who he promptly kicked out at Fangs arrival. He told himself it was because she had invited herself over, not because Fangs had showed up and made him forget why she was there.

And he still hugged him and bumped into him, and just touched him in general. More than he did anyone else, which again Pea chalked up to him being the only one who got the enigma that was Fangs.

That night, they were at the Wyrm, celebrating with their friends.

Joaquin was leaned against the last stool, and Toni was behind the bar, sneaking shots over to them as they crowded the corner (they usually only let them have a few beers due to their age, despite being Serpents). Fangs was on the stool beside him, arm thrown over his shoulders, a manic grin on his face. 

They talked and drank, and by midnight Pea was done. He was verging on black out drunk, and had been cut off. Fangs had stopped after awhile, already sober so he could take him home.

He flung his arm over Fangs shoulder, a scowl on his face when Toni refused him a last drink.

“Fogarty, take me home.”

He was too drunk to hear the snickers of the other two as Fangs hauled him up, walking him out to his truck. They made it in, and over to the trailer, with no incident.

Fangs walked him in, Peas arm still around his shoulders, the grip tightening. Pea kept hold of him and headed down the short hallway, only letting go when he collapsed in his bed.

Fangs pulled his boots off his feet that hung over the edge of the bed, while he struggled to pull off his jacket. Once down to his boxers and T-shirt, he pulled himself under the covers, curling up facing the wall.

“Come to bed Fogarty.”

It was mumbled, but Fangs heard it. He didn’t think anything of pulling off his boots and clothes as well, didn’t think about Pea being drunk and it being wrong to curl into him on the bed in his white tee and boxer briefs. He had slept over a lot since last summer, and they’d shared a bed a handful of times when it was cold in the fall.

He climbed in, his hand resting on Sweet Peas side, both falling asleep instantly.

They didn’t talk about how they woke, with Fangs on his back, arm stretched up so his hand was in Peas hair. And Pea on his stomach with his head turned facing him, his leg resting against the others, hand barely touching Fangs side.

———————

The summer after Senior year had Sweet Pea realizing maybe he didn’t have boundaries, for Fangs to cross anyways. He knew he was usually oblivious to the world around him, so to consciously see that he made a difference between Fangs and others made him second guess everything.

He made a huge difference, allowing him to touch him and say things to him others wouldn’t be able to, and let him be close emotionally too.

They had spent most of their time together and with the other Serpents their age, the first two weeks blowing by them.

Fangs pretty much lived with Sweet Pea, since the latter had come home from school in January and found his moms stuff gone, a note about how to pay the lot rent laying on the coffee table.

It hit him that he was permanently there when a thought about ‘his side of the bed’ crossed through, startling him. There was only one bedroom, and he wasn’t going to make his best friend sleep on the couch. 

At least that’s what he told himself.

But no matter how he justified it, he realized how it would look to anyone who didn’t know them, and it shocked him that it didn’t bother him.

Not that he was against that sort of thing, he would defend Toni and Joaquin’s life choices to anyone. But it didn’t bother him that it was a situation involving him.

And it kind of bothered him that it didn’t bother him. 

Toni would crack innuendos, most of them going over Fangs head, but Pea caught them. He would usually scowl at her, but he wouldn’t stop whatever he had been doing at the time to make her say it. He would keep his arm draped over the shorter man, or let Fangs keep touching him as they walked.

He had just come to accept that Fangs was his best friend, and that he would do anything for him.


	3. Chapter 3

It was fall of that year when Sweet Pea had a mini panic attack about the way things were going.

They had both gotten jobs to pay the lot rent and utilities, Fangs at the Bodega next to the Wyrm, and Pea at the Serpents garage.

Between the two of them they made enough to pay the bills and get food, with a little left over.

Sweet Pea was putting the handful of groceries he had grabbed away, trying to decide what to make for dinner. He had been off, so he was going to take care of it since Fangs was working a double.

“I’ll just do his favorite.” He was trading the cans he was putting in for the the pasta and sauce jar when he froze. He stopped breathing and sat down hard at the tiny kitchen table.

The domesticity has shocked him. He was excited to make dinner for the man who shared his bed. The man who he cared about. Who he loved.

He finally took in air in a large gulp, gasping and shaking. 

Did he think that? Did he really love him? Of course he loved him, Fangs was his best friend. But did he _love_ him?

He stared at the tabletop, eyes drifting to the bills marked “Paid” with a green marker in Fangs hand, and he took another deep breath.

He was fucked.

An hour later, the man in question burst through the door, kicking off his boots and hanging up his jacket.

“Lucy, I’m home!” He called out in a terrible accent. He smiled when he came into the kitchen. “Something smells amazing!” 

His smile got bigger when he saw it was pasta, and he slung an arm around Peas waist, resting his head against the others shoulder.

“You’re the greatest.” He smiled again, and took off down the hallway to shower.

Pea took gulping breaths again, trying to calm down from how close he had been.

This wasn’t going to end well.

Five minutes later had Fangs coming down the hall, a pair of basketball shorts slung low on his hips, and a white tee tight across his chest.

Sweet Pea swallowed and dished up the food, putting a plate in front of Fangs. Fangs stuck his hand out, catching his eye and smiling.

“Thanks man.” Pea nodded, stepping back to the counter. “You not gonna eat? Come on.” He could hear the concern in his voice.

The oven bell dinged at that point, and the conversation was lost as he pulled out the small cake pan, setting it on a towel on the table.

“Holy shit! Cinnamon peaches!” Fangs grinned again, pulling Pea down for a hug. He stiffened, pulling back and sitting down to eat himself.

Fangs raised a brow but let it go, focusing on the food in front of him.

After dinner, they both washed up, and then headed to bed. Pea curled up as far as he could get to the edge, facing the wall.

He felt the bed dip, and the covers pull up tight.

He didn’t expect the arms that went around him, pulling him back against a hard chest.

“Thank you. For everything.”

It was whispered in his ear, and the arms loosened but didn’t let him go. He turned on his back, looking over at the other man.

“Anything for you.” He shrugged like the weight of his words wouldn’t sink them.

He leaned over, pressing a kiss to Fangs lips, pulling back to see him grinning.

“About damn time.”

They didn’t fall asleep until much later, Sweet Pea thanking whoever was listening that Fangs had never had boundaries with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is. Let me know if you liked it, I have a few others I may post if someone actually enjoyed this.


End file.
